1840.] Asiatic Society, 1135 



renders this supposition still more probable is, that the Jdmi al Tawdrikh is not 

 mentioned in the catalogue as one of Farzada Kuli's books. Upon the whole then, 

 there is good reason to infer that Colonel Baillie's MS. some forty years back, was 

 one of the many rare works described in the catalogue of Farzada Kuli's library ; and 

 if that treasure be not ere now dispersed, I should suggest that search should be made 

 for it in the kingdom of Oude, 



'Before I conclude these hasty remarks, I cannot help observing that the Jdmi al 

 Tawdrikh does not seem so very scarce a book among eastern writers,* as M. de 

 Quatremere would lead us to suppose. It is inferred, for instance, that Mirkhond and 

 Khondemir were either ignorant of its existence, or borrowed from it without acknow- 

 ledgment. Now the fact is, that Mirkhond, in the preface to the Rozat-al-sqffa, 

 mentions this very work as one of the sources to which he was indebted for his 

 materials. His words are,t "Kh'aja Rashid tabib, sahib-i Jami, that is, Khaja 

 Rashid, the physician, author of the Jdmi," i. e., The Collection, or Universal 

 History, Of Khondemir, I do not happen to possess a copy, but at all events, there 

 can be no reason to suppose that he was ignorant of the Jami, as he must have read 

 the works of his immediate predecessor, Mirkhond. It would be endless, as well as 

 useless, to mention other writers who allude to the Jami al Tawdrikh, In the intro- 

 duction to the fourth volume of the Kimiya-e-Sa' ddat, the author expresses his 

 obligations to the Jdmi al Tawdrikh, of Kh'aja Rashid, the wazir. Even the very 

 thieves who stole the Society's fragment out of the volume now in possession of 

 Colonel Baillie's successor, seemed to have very well known what they were about, 

 for the fragment is marked, " az Jdmi al Tawdrikh," i.e. out of the Collection of 

 Histories. 



' In the Society's MS., No. 14, already alluded to as being a duplicate of the old 

 fragment of the life of Shakmuni, there is prefixed (in Persian) an account of the 

 author and his works, of which, as it is not long, a translation is here subjoined. "It 

 is well known that the Jdmi al Tawdrikh, compiled by Kh'aja Rashid al-din, 

 contains a history of the whole world, both as regards the lives of the prophets, and 

 the manners and conduct of the kings of every region. In the same work the writer 

 hath also given a sketch of the history of India ; for he had learned something of the 

 tenents of the sages of that country from (competent) people, and part (of his infor- 

 mation) he had from the book of Abul rihan Biriini, who having frequently travelled' 

 to India in the service of Sultan Mahmiid, the son of Sabactagin, had held intercourse 

 with the sages of that country. After he had made thorough proficiency in the science 

 of the Indian philosophers, he translated, from the Indian language into the Arabic 

 tongue, the book of Fatankal, or Patanjal, which is a collection of all the sciences, 



* It has been suggested to me, that the Jdmi al Tawdrikh, alluded to by Mirkhond, &c., refers 

 only to the Tarikh i Ghdzdni, or first volume, but not to the last three. I must say, however, that 

 I cannot perceive why these writers should have so misapplied the term Collection of Histories, to 

 the history of a particular nation, which, besides, had a separate title of its own, I may further 

 mention that, in a MS. in my possession, entitled Majma al Ghardib, the Jdmi al Tawdrikh is 

 quoted on a matter of chronology which is assuredly from the latter volumes, stating that, " from 

 the fall of Adam to the birth of Muhammad there had elapsed G102 years, six months, and 

 ten days !" 



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